Department of Consumer Affairs marks 50th anniversary, outlines complaint, enforcement and outreach work

Carrie Groovy Lybarger, administrator and consumer advocate for the Department of Consumer Affairs, opened a webinar marking the agency’s fiftieth anniversary and reviewed the agency’s history, services and plans for 2025.

Lybarger said the agency’s origins trace to the rise of consumer-credit regulation at the federal level in the 1960s and 1970s and the passage of the South Carolina Consumer Protection Code in 1974. “In 1974, our state passed the South Carolina Consumer Protection Code,” she said, adding that the code went into effect Jan. 1, 1975 and that the agency began operations Nov. 1, 1974.

The agency’s stated mission is to protect consumers through advocacy, mediation, enforcement and education; Lybarger said that mission will be revised as part of the anniversary activities. She also described the department’s structure: 9 commissioners serve as the policy-making body (four appointed by the General Assembly, four by the governor, and the secretary of state ex officio), plus an advisory council appointed by the governor.

Lybar…